uberchargers

[limejuicepowder]

Is it recommended to generally not use uberchargers as PC opponents? Their capacity for one-shot kills can definitely lead to some bad feelings, but I really want my group to fight one.

Little bit of backstory: the PCs are currently traveling to giant territory in order to gather some info from the giants (the setting is viking, so the giants are not dumb by any means). They are actually teamed up with a giant right now, someone they freed from the mind control of the BBEG. I was thinking of them running in to a wildman tribe led by Giantman McSlayer (or w/e). The giant would warn them that McSlayer has killed many giants, often in a single ferocious strike..."if he catches you in the open with room to run, you will be slain, like a farmers cuts his wheat."

I feel with the forewarning the PCs can prepare for the fight and not get charged (if they're smart). If they get cut down, it won't be nearly as bad as if the charger ambushed and struck with no warning at all.

Thoughts?

Oh and the party is a factotum, a melee cleric, a chaintripping fighter, and a sorcadin, all level 7 (nearly 8). Plus the giant, who is physically a hill giant.

[genericwit]

Is it recommended to generally not use uberchargers as PC opponents? Their capacity for one-shot kills can definitely lead to some bad feelings, but I really want my group to fight one.

Little bit of backstory: the PCs are currently traveling to giant territory in order to gather some info from the giants (the setting is viking, so the giants are not dumb by any means). They are actually teamed up with a giant right now, someone they freed from the mind control of the BBEG. I was thinking of them running in to a wildman tribe led by Giantman McSlayer (or w/e). The giant would warn them that McSlayer has killed many giants, often in a single ferocious strike..."if he catches you in the open with room to run, you will be slain, like a farmers cuts his wheat."

I feel with the forewarning the PCs can prepare for the fight and not get charged (if they're smart). If they get cut down, it won't be nearly as bad as if the charger ambushed and struck with no warning at all.

Thoughts?

Oh and the party is a factotum, a melee cleric, a chaintripping fighter, and a sorcadin, all level 7 (nearly 8). Plus the giant, who is physically a hill giant.

I see no reason why the chaintripping fighter couldn't just stop the ubercharge with a trip once he enters threat range, or maybe use standstill or something.

With prep, they should be able to find lots of ways to stop the ubercharger. Hell, if his dex/reflex is poor, tanglefoot bags/grease could stop him, and one hold person would take him out (asumming he's human). Besides, if he's a giantslayer, you think he'd go for the hillgiant first, which would give the party ample time to finish him off.

[Lapak]

The problem is basically he's an all-or-nothing fight. Either:

- They neutralize him completely using one of the methods suggested here or another one. Now the fight is trivial, potentially boring, and takes all the oomph out of 'BEWARE the giant-slayer, he'll murder you but good!'

- They fail to neutralize him and he one-shots at least one party member, establishing his villain-cred. But, you know, you just one-shotted a party member.

It's OK for PC uberchargers (assuming you're okay with them at all) to have to work at getting in position for their shot in some fights, because then they do and the payoff is good. If the NPC gets his shot off at all, you need a Raise Dead spell. It's OK for PCs to sometimes end up neutralized for a whole fight; everyone has an off day and we all know that they contribute. This one fight is the only chance an NPC has to make an impression.

Any all-or-nothing build usually makes for a bad guy that's either an anticlimactic pushover or a murder machine, and neither is that much fun. So I'd try to make sure that the build includes a less-effective-but-still-scary fallback strategy if at all possible, so that the PCs can stop his Ubercharge but still feel like they've been in a fight.

[BowStreetRunner]

Any time you are not sure as DM whether the party is prepared for a specific type of challenge, a little foreshadowing can go a long way. Try introducing a partially optimized charger in an earlier encounter and see how they do. This will have the double advantage of helping you to see how well they deal with the tactic, and also give them a little nudge that maybe they need to be prepared for this sort of thing.

[Alabenson]

My advice, if you're really concerned about the survivability of the PCs versus the initial charge, would be to have the charger target the giant first, which actually would make sense in-character as you described him as a "giant-slayer".

The loss of their valuable ally should certainly terrify them, but at the same time you don't have to deal with a player who's angry that your NPC just slaughtered their character.

[Darth Stabber]

If you don't have an npc to aim at first, uberchargers are going to start killing pcs, like one every round until they figure out what's going on. Even with an NPC target, it gives them one round to figure out the deal and produce the solution. It's not hard for him to figure out aim at the squishy first, and in doing so nail the sorcadin, then the factotum. The tripper fighter has the power to trivialize the encounter once it's going, so they have at least one solution on deck, just note that an ubercharger has the strength to ensure that tripping isn't an automatic lock, though standstill would make it close.

[Gwendol]

The cleric has the power to trivialize the encounter with a level 1 spell: obscuring mist. No line of sight = no charge.